Touring: Auktion 392

Addressing the issues of Nazi Looted Art and the on-going restitution efforts through the courts in America and Europe of works forcibly sold at the instruction of the Nazi regime at Kunsthaus Lempertz in Cologne

Max Stern and Nazi looted art

This exhibition is constructed in three seamless modules telling the stories of the Stern family and Max Stern's doomed struggle to save his art gallery and collection, the forced auction with up to 70 missing works reproduced and hung and finally the restitution of Nazi looted art in general, alongside the up-to-minute progress of the Max Stern art restitution project.

Ben Uri is honoured to bring the extraordinary story of Dr Max Stern and the 1937 ‘Auktion 392’ in Cologne to life in a dramatic physical reconstruction of the Galerie Stern and of the auction environment of the forced sale of his Galerie’s extensive stock which Max Stern had consigned to Cologne’s leading auctioneers, Lempertz, to hold literally within days - then as now titled ‘Auktion 392’.

Missing artworks

The exhibition includes up to 70 images of missing works sold at prices that reflected the speed and the overall circumstances during this time. The exhibition will conclude with provenance research and restitution updates led, on behalf of the estate of Dr Stern, by Concordia University Montreal. The Estate’s ambitious restitution project in less than two years has led to the successful restitution of two works of art with a third under court proceedings in America.

Ben Uri is delighted that The Montreal Museum of Fine Art has agreed to loan the first work of art restituted in October 2006 Aimee, eine junge agypterin 1869 by Emile C. H. Vernet-Lecomte and is in negotiation to exhibit the second work currently shown at a European Foundation.

Past exhibition dates

Auktion 392 opened at Ben Uri, The London Jewish Museum of Art 16 September - 24 December 2007. It then toured in the UK to Liverpool Town Hall (January 2008) and Hereford Museum and Art Gallery (January 2009). The exhibition was also shown at the Jewish Museum, Florida, in October 2010

Faculty of Fine Arts Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal

The exhibition has been conceived, researched and curated by the Faculty of Fine Arts Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. Auktion 392 launched at Concordia University in late 2006 and transferred to New York in April 2007 and has been curated by Dr Catherine MacKenzie, Professor, Department of Art History, Concordia University and is toured and presented by Ben Uri Gallery, The London Jewish Museum of Art.